Geoff & Chris in the UK     Letters & Photos: Previous Next

UK News 29 June 2003

Hello everyone from the UK, where we've just had our 'longest day' and NZ has it's 'shortest day'. The sun is setting even later at night, 9:33pm tonight, but the duck goes on for quite a while longer. We had hoped to go over to Norway for the weekend, to witness the Midnight Sun Festival with Alex and Mira Petcu from Olympia Place. There is only 4 hours of night at this time of year, which must be a great excuse for a party, but difficult to get good sleep. Couldn't make it this year, maybe another time.

We've realised, that with not having to care to the lawns, gardens, pool or bush of Olympia Place, that we've such much more spare time! This time has been put to good use this weekend with shopping and boozing...

Highlight of Chris's week was attending a two day medical conference, at which was learnt, amongst other things, all about erectile dysfunction. The details will not be gone into here but suffice to say use it or lose it and don't get overweight or smoke. The train ride into the city to the conference was interesting. Noticed the culture of the train commuter - different to that on the bus. Everyone sits and reads the free newspaper or sleeps. As I sat there I noticed the notice on the emergency exit sign which told me to take a hammer and smash the corner of the window if I needed to get out in a hurry!...must remember to put one in my handbag next time I travel on the train - just in case...

One thing about the drug companies is that they are incredibly generous will all the goodies they give out to conference attendees. Chris came home with all sorts of useful and useless stuff. The conference was at the beautiful Birmingham Symphony Hall and International Conference Centre. 

It's great to see Chris's sister Judy settled in her new house, having moved away from her rotten husband. We all went out to a pub meal to celebrate the successful move - at which we ate far too much. For £6.95 it was a 'eat as much as you like' meal, and despite normally good self control, we pigged out terribly. And still had room for pudding, with a 'bottomless jug of custard'. Disgusting...

Birmingham does have it's share of troubles, with gang shootings happening regularly in the Aston area. Two teenage girls were killed there on New Years Eve, when they became caught in the crossfire. More troubles on the weekend. You'll be pleased to know that we stay well away from there...

Lots of Brits have dirty hands, due to a TV programme called Time Team. Their 'Big Dig' project has seen archaeology on a huge scale, with hundreds of supervised digs around the country this weekend. Amazing how a 1 metre square pit in peoples back gardens have revealed evidence of saxon civilisation and iron age cooking, etc. The fragments of broken pots and things that they coo over amaze us - that they can tell how many hundreds of years old, these fragments are.  This TV programme is presented by none other than 'Baldrick' of Black Adder fame. We are now keen to dig up Dads back garden - Geoff is convinced we are bound to find roman coins as the site originally had a roman villa near there. So we will have to go and get scrapers and knee pads. Will let you know what we find!!

Wednesday
Geoff attended a breakfast meeting at the Birmingham e-Commerce Club, and made some useful contacts - its important to build a network of contacts.

Geoff is also short listed with Specialist Computer Holdings after a successful 2nd interview, and will be told this week of his success (or not). Their recruitment has been delayed due to having to employ an internal applicant. He also received a call from Shoosmiths solicitors, saying that he has been short-listed and is to attend a 2nd interview tomorrow - Tuesday.

Moss Brothers have a great 1/2 price sale on, so we've bought Geoff another suit - £75 for a really lovely one. That will be right nice for his interview on Tuesday. He looks great in a lovely blue Daniel Hechter shirt with it. Gwen you would be proud of him.

Thursday
Tears - We felt frustratingly far away, when Jevon went into a Rotorua hospital for a Hiatus Hernia operation - he's recovering well and should no longer suffer from his hiatus hernia. He was soooo pleased to find he had woken up and that the anaesthetic had not killed him. Wanted to be there with my boy...Geoff's Dad Les and my Dad had a similar operation a few years ago.

Friday
Off to the local folk club, The Boggery again. We didn't enjoy this week's act so much, and slipped out at half time, after skulling our beer shandies &  Walkers crisps. It was female rock/blues singer but she had this peculiar yodelly sort of voice - if you can imagine.

Saturday
Off to Redditch, for a days shopping. Managed to buy Aidan & Rach's wedding present (14th Feb 04) and we are so pleased, very high quality British Midlands made and we know they will have it for many many years.

Received a boozy phone call from a group of Hamiltonian friends - gathered at the Armstrong's for a mid winter meal, and to watch rugby. Lovely to hear people's voices again.

In the mail, Geoff received a late birthday present from Hill Laboratories - a couple of the lovely glass coasters with their logo etched with a powerful laser. These will have pride of place on his desk at home & at his new job.

Funny how our memories can warp our perception... Years ago we saw the Mike Lee movie 'Secrets & Lies', loved it, and have regarded it as one of our favourite movies of all time. We hired it to show to George, Claire & Dave - telling them it's a great comedy, and instead came to remember that it's quite a miserable tale of family secrets, distrust, malice and tears. An excellent movie, but not as light hearted as we had remembered! - perhaps we had a lot of champagne that night?

Sunday
A few hours shopping at the summer sales in Solihull and then took George out for a pleasant drink at the Navigation  Pub in Lapworth. We sat in the sun and basked - it was great, very convivial and lovely garden. This pub is on the side of the canal, so it's interesting to watch the various barges and boats cruise buy. One nice thing about this pub, is that it is child friendly, including having a pile of children's games sitting outside, to amuse the kids.

We seem to spend a lot of time peering into shops looking for something special to wear at Aidan & Rach's wedding - Geoff saw a beautiful shirt for him, but gagged at the £100 ($300) price tag!). Chris warns that she's going to spend much more than that on her outfit... (and even more on jewelry) - but never manages to find that perfect thing  - HELP Jane.. I need you to come shopping....

Latest news of the health and science newsfront is that some UK children are being discovered to be allergic to kiwifruit, and they're trying to grow a variety of beans, for baked beans, that do not cause so much flatulence! This reminds me that during the 'red nose day' fundraising season, when you could buy packets of baked bean potato chips, complete with a whoopee cushion.

Oh well time to go - take care our friends and family - be safe and happy till we get back.

Love Chris and Geoff

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